Chapter 11 - The Little Chapel

Wandering around Siegendorf, you can't help but notice what I call The Little Chapel. It's smack dab in the middle of town, in the center of a busy, three-way intersection. No one seems to know why it was built, but I did learn that people who could afford it would build a chapel to give thanks for something they felt God had given them or perhaps to gain God's grace for something they wanted. I love churches and was struck by the simplicity of this one and its location. Even with modern day traffic whizzing (and I do mean speeding) by, it still stands as a symbol of an earlier age. I love that in Austria the old is lovingly retained, not stripped away and replaced by something newer and ostensibly better. Peeking inside, I've seen occasional changes, i.e. chairs, etc., so clearly the chapel is still in use. The small grounds around it are nicely landscaped, and the exterior and interior of the chapel are obviously meticulously maintained.







Roughly translated: "Tise Kebeln built this entire
common [meaning not a grand chapel] in 1745."


Inside, the chapel is plain, about six by eight feet
in area, with an old wooden floor, raised kneeling
platform before the altar, with simple altar and
religious art decorating the altar and side walls.

Episode 10 - Old Town in Sopron

We went into Hungary again yesterday and did more exploring in Old Town. Before that, however, we went to the Total Beauty Center in Sopron Plaza. It's a typical modern mall with shops, kiosks, restaurants and cafes and, more to the point for us, a beauty salon/spa. They do haircuts, lots of hair dyeing, massages, waxing, manicures and pedicures, which is what we wanted. There is a large main area and several smaller rooms. The manicure was pretty typical, but there were some differences in the pedicure. First, you go into this room about 25 feet long by about 8 feet wide. Along one long wall is an elevated row of seven chairs for the pedicures. They look more like dentist office chairs, and the backs, seats and arms are covered with form-fitting white terry cloth. At the front of each seat folded down are leg extenders also covered with white terry cloth. The girls sit on office-style swivel chairs and move the extenders up and down wherever they want your feet. Everyone who works there wears white shirts and slacks, style according to their choice. And no one wears a white bra under her shirt - I saw black, pink, green, turquoise and yellow but no white or neutral. They all wear lots of jewelry, including extra ear rings, nose and eyebrow studs and necklaces.

Five women worked in the pedicure area, and I can now state that a bunch of women chattering in Hungarian doesn't sound that different from Vietnamese - you still can't understand a word they say! It also makes you wonder if you want to get your hair done there after you see the workers' hair. Odd, assymetrical cuts, spiky, bright color patches and streaks, all the kinds of things that discourage me from letting them touch my hair.

After you make your appointment, you wait in a lounge area just outside the salon area. You can see everything going on in the salon through the glass walls. Servers come around and take drink orders, and many people enjoy wine or beer while waiting. Also, women with foil strips in their hair sit out there and enjoy a drink while waiting for the color to take. All in all, we found it an interesting experience and about the same price as in America.

Then we went into Old Town in Sopron. I'd never heard of the town before, but it is a very old city. Founded in Roman times, it was a thriving community during the medieval period. The city suffered terribly during World War II due to Nazi bombing and atrocities and later from Soviet occupation. Today it has a population of about 53,000. The hardest part for us is that we would see an obviously very old building that might be a museum, but there are no signs in English (like you often see in Austria) and no arrows pointing to museums. The only way we found the Fire Tower and churches was to see the spires and walk through the streets till we found them.

The Fire Tower is the symbol of Sopron. The foundations are Roman, and it was added to during the medieval period, Renaissance and later Baroque eras. We were going to go into the Fire Tower Museum but didn't have any florins - they didn't take Euros - so we'll do that another day.

Roman Era foundation at entrance to Fire Tower




Different Views of the Fire Tower






Benedictine Church


On the wall on the right side of the aisle


The altar


This is a private home. Many of the houses have a lintel
with the building date above the front door.


Another church with protective Roman Era wall






This is the World War II memorial. On the other side
there was a bronze helmet that looked a lot like the
German helmet of that era and a bouquet someone had
placed at the foot. Note the Hungarian flag - we saw
many flags and wondered if it was a holiday akin to
our Memorial Day.


We love the old cobblestones. Note that the pigeons
completely ignore Bob - that's his shadow.


Another Roman Era wall


I guess there are some disadvantages to living in the
picturesque Old Town.


The Sopron Post Office


This Opera or Music House is famous. Sopron was
the home of many composers, including Franz Liszt.

Episode 9 - Party Hearty!

We haven't been to this many parties in years! Every few days there's a get-together, a birthday party, a wine tasting, a salsa party, a cookout, and so on. It's absolutely great! The cookouts are the best for obvious reasons - the food is fabulous! Everyone pitches in and makes their favorites. Some recipes have been handed down for generations. At one recent cookout a guy showed us how he makes two family recipes.

Remember the war in Bosnia-Herzogovina in the 1990s? None of us really understood what and where Herzogovina was. Well, we now know someone from there. Ante explained to us that in the Middle Ages there was a nobleman named Herzog who lived in the southern part of Bosnia. Although his duchy was never an independent nation, it was a province in Bosnia and was forever after named for him.

In the following pictures you can see how Ante bakes bread and potato pie from recipes even he doesn't know how old they are. His grandmother passed them on to him.

First, he chops the wood for the fire.


Some of the guys built this hearth.


The wood is burned until the hearth is really hot.


The bread dough is placed in a pan on the hot hearth
under a bell. A layer of ash is kept permanently on
top of the bell. The bread cooks under the bell.


Clearly I didn't move fast enough to take a picture!


To make the potato pie, first Ante winds dough around a stick.


Then he rolls it out, places it in the pan and puts cut up
potatoes on top.


The potato pie has cooked under the bell.


It tastes as good as it looks!


Other dishes included a Greek style salad, a river fish cooked whole, steaks broiled Texas-style by Bob, cheesecake and of course lots of beer. This time it was Czech beer, and it was delicious!

Another night there was a salsa band from Cuba who played at Sigma. The picture isn't very clear, but I had to put it in! The group was quite good, and a lot of people were dancing. Not Bob and me of course - we don't know how to salsa. The last time Bob tried to do a specific dance, it was disco in the '70s. We went to two lessons before he refused to return. We considered "winging it" to the salsa music but decided to have another glass of wine instead.

Episode 8 - Sights in Siegendorf

We've been going on walks around Siegendorf, a village of about 2,700 people. It has a nice mix of old and new. I'm very interested in two churches in town which I'll describe in future blogs. In this one I want to show the school, the main government building and some different kinds of houses.

This is the government building in town. Inside are things like the mayor's office and the post office (open 8 to 11 am and 2 to 5 pm).


This is the primary school which has the first four grades. After that children go to school in nearby Eisenstadt.






This is a typical street of row houses. You see these all over this part of Austria.



Here are three really older houses.






Here are three houses that are obviously newer and quite large.






Some things are the same everywhere - like birthday parties.
We could hear the children shouting.

Episode 7 - First Impressions of Hungary

Hungary is literally just a mile away so we've been there a few times, primarily to shop at Tesco, a United Kingdom-based mega store along the lines of Walmart. Driving a bit farther, you reach Sopron, a town with what I'd call an interesting past. It has its medieval center of course with a fire tower that dates from the 12th century (I haven't seen that yet). What is so interestng to me is that in 1921 the whole area of eastern Austria and western Hungary had to vote to decide whether to become part of Austria or stay in the Kingdom of Hungary. (Short reason is Empire of Austria-Hungary was on the losing side in World War I and was being broken up.) The whole Burgenland state of eastern Austria voted to become part of Austria (including Klingenbach, Siegendorf, Eisenstadt, etc). The town of Sopron voted to stay with Hungary and for that vote was named the "most loyal town" by the king of Hungary. After World War II and the Iron Curtain descended for half a century, I wonder if the citizens of Sopron ever regretted that vote.

Some pictures taken in Sopron.












A few days ago we were taken to a restaurant in a small village east of Sopron. The atmosphere was almost Mediterranean and the food delicious.


The name of the village is the word that starts with "K" -
I don't have a clue how to pronounce it.


Entrance to restaurant


Languages - Hungarian, Croatian, German, English


Two-lane bowling alley in part of restaurant


Church in the village